The Design comes AFTER the Marketing Plan!

It’s a smart business move to have a well-designed website.

But good design — even great design — won’t solve all your business problems. Not even close.

Design is NOT a magic pill

If you don’t have a basic marketing plan in place, design can’t achieve anything worthwhile. The design may look great, but the message won’t communicate to your visitors simply because you won’t have a focused message that will direct the visitors to do the “whatever it is” that you want them to do.

The first questions I ask people when we talk about a new project are, “Who are you trying to reach?” “Who is your target audience?”

If you’re not very clear on who you want your website to appeal to, then the best website design in the world won’t help you get sales.

You’ll find the design will work a lot better when every colour choice and every image is tailor-made to appeal to the people you want to talk to.

Design is NOT your message

Before you add design into your marketing mix, you have to know what you want to say.

This should be an easy one. But did you know that there are lots of companies out there that think they can rely on the design alone to communicate their message?

Think about it this way: You have interested people enough that they have arrived at your website. But if they discover that you have unfocused or boring content, you will lose them.

Good design may get customers in your door, but it’s the content that keeps them from walking right back out again.

When you implement both good design and solid, valuable content, you’ll double or triple the power of either of these elements alone.

Design is NOT about YOU

Don’t make design decisions based on personal likes or dislikes.

Make your decisions based on what appeals to your target market, and the colours and forms that will best communicate your message.

If your target market thinks yellow is an appealing, fresh, happy colour that endears them to your services, then it really doesn’t matter that yellow is your least favourite colour.

When you let your site or content reflect only your personal tastes, you’re risking your website not connecting at all with the people you want to bring to your business.

So, think about who you want to sell to.

What are their problems? What colours, shapes and content will appeal to them as individuals?

If you let those answers inform your business decisions more than your personal tastes, you will get much better results from your website.